Data Review
54
Review of University of Amsterdam (2019): Electoral Contention and Violence (ECAV)
Version 1.0, published: May 4, 2025.
Description
The Electoral Contention and Violence (ECAV) dataset, which was created by a research team following Ursula E. Daxecker (University of Amsterdam), codes nonviolent and violent contention related to national elections. It covers 1.208 national election rounds in 136 countries around the world during the time period from 1990 to 2012. The research team included all countries with “unconsolidated regimes that held competitive national elections and consisted of populations larger than half a million.” (Daxecker et al. 2019: 2). Electoral contention is defined as “public acts of mobilization, contestation, or coercion by state or nonstate actors that are used to affect the electoral process or that arise in the context of electoral competition” (Daxecker et al. 2019: 3).
Of the 18.200+ total entries in this dataset, there are 2.300+ events listed for the countries of Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia covered by Discuss Data. As of summer 2024, it seems like work on the data collection has concluded.
The data review contains a link leading to the official ECAV website from which both the dataset and the codebook are available for download. The download of the dataset does however require a (free) registration on the website.
Countries
Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus Estonia Georgia Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Latvia Lithuania Moldova Other Russia Tajikistan Turkmenistan Ukraine Uzbekistan
Keywords
Elections Violence Protests Strikes Unrest Riots Violent Non-Violent Attacks Killings Intimidation Harassment